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9. August 2010 – 15:00 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Call Centre, by vitorcastillo on Flickr
In the course of researching our keynote speakers for the PEP-NET Summit I came across two articles, one of which is very relevant to (e-)participation, and the other will be of interest to anyone working in or with the public sector. They both put a matter of conventional wisdom under the microscope: in one case, the assumption that bigger engagement excercises are always more valuable, and in the other, the idea that economies of scale improve efficiency. Hence, they both challenge the assumption that bigger is better.
So the message is not to go with the flow — unless it’s economies of flow you’re talking about. Confused? Then read on …
Read the rest of this entry »
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5. August 2010 – 12:15 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Leicester Town Hall, stevecadman on Flickr
Sometimes it really feels as though we’ve arrived in the future: Leicester City Council is issuing a small group of elected representatives with touch-screen tablet computers with internet access. The trial will be extended to all Councillors if the Apple iPads can deliver the promised efficiency savings of £90,000.
The Gr8Governance blog, written by the Assistant Head of Policy and Governance at Kirklees Council, picked up on the story and noted the findings of the Councillor Commission, which found that technology is essential for Councillors attempting to serve a greater number of constituents with growing expectations that their enquiries will be answered quickly.
It’s interesting that the Daily Mail’s reaction was to criticise the Council for trialling the new technology in a time of financial cutbacks, when the intention behind the scheme is to save money by investing. This perhaps signals a Catch-22 that many local authorities will face in hard times: modern technology can help save resources by raising efficiency, but the cost investment required is can raise eyebrows.
The Council has taken a sensible approach by trialling the introduction of iPads with a few Councillors before rolling them out across the board. The reaction of the Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper with substantial influence on public opinion, is part of the reason why experimentation is so difficult at the moment. On the other hand, putting the findings of the Councillor Commission into practice requires an element of experimentation. So it is important to make sure that, when trials take place, the results are spread across the public sector to allow a level of experimentation without excessive waste. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of the trial is, especially if it is transferrable to other local governments.
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30. June 2010 – 11:04 by Fraser Henderson - ICELE
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The UK government, in an attempt to save 25% across all government departments, has embarked on a crowd-sourcing exercise with a special ‘spending challenge’ website. Scrutiny over spending is also a major theme with all purchaes over £500 to be visible on the web and a host of “where was it spent?” websites appearing such as http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/
The principal behind the spending challenge website is simple; submit your idea and it will be considered. According to the website, some 20,000 ideas have been collected during the first week. The process isn’t particularly clever or transparent (you can’t see the ideas like uservoice.com) but it is simple and, my guess is, quite effective.
The gloom continued as the national digital participation programme was rescoped and the 191 innovation fund applications (seeking just under £28m) were canned.
However, how about government being better at generating revenue? In other words, ideas to raise money. For example, advertisements on council websites (Google Adsense is already being used by a number of UK authorities and advertisement placements are prominent on others such as Lincolnshire). A simple” donate” button or sponsored search boxes (e.g. http://www.whitebox.org.uk/) might do wonders to offset costs. After all, you can already sponsor a roundabout to help with maintainence costs.
The lack of seed funding for new innovation is a worry, perhaps we should refocus our efforts on making bank investments more transparent?
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
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4. May 2010 – 09:13 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Dominic's Twitter profile pic
Dominic Campbell, Director and founder of British consultancy FutureGov, has taken time off from his day job to volunteer for the Labour party election campaign. Dominic kindly found the time between meetings with the likes of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband for me to interview him about government, what can be learned from the US, and his role in the Labour Party election campaign.
Dominic’s comments relating to the Labour Party are made in a personal capacity and not as director of FutureGov.
John Heaven: Hi Dominic. Many thanks for your time today - I know you must be very busy with only three days to go until the general election. First question: Why did you found FutureGov?
Dominic Campbell: I first became involved in local government as a graduate trainee at Barnet Council. Within four years, I was heading a department. Despite being promoted so quickly, I didn’t have the influence that I had expected. In order to change things for the better, I decided I needed to influence the whole sector instead of being dependent on one manager or one council leader.
JH: What is it about local government that fascinates you?
DC: Funnily enough, I was asked the other day which part of government I’d most like to work in. My answer was unequivocally “local government”: it’s the most diverse, interesting and closest to people. It has a different culture from central government, and the right people at the right time really can be agile and make change without asking for permission. I don’t have time for council leaders who say that government isn’t decentralised enough that they don’t have autonomy to do stuff without asking.
JH: I noticed your work with Harvard University for FutureGov on “eGov” and “WeGov”. What is that all about?
DC: eGov - eGovernment - is top-down and centralised. It’s about maintaining the old way of doing government but doing it more efficiently by adding a layer of IT over old bureaucracy. eGov is expensive, and you have no autonomy as a human being to change things and make them work better. It has gone as far as it can: we’ve had web forms, SAP systems and the like. eGovernment has made government better, but now we’re moving onto the next stage, which is WeGov.
WeGov is about harnessing web 2.0, and promoting social innovation to change the way government works and redesign services. It’s about saying “people are getting on and doing things without us. How can we make the most of what they’re doing?”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not one of those people who says eGovernment is rubbish and web 2.0 is the only way. eGovernment served a purpose, and it is now evolving to the next stage.
JH: What can the UK learn from the US and vice versa?
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Posted in Interview, Trends, Uncategorized, Visions | No Comments »
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15. April 2010 – 00:41 by Anthony Zacharzewski
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As the election campaign in the UK gets up to speed, PEP-NET member the Democratic Society is working with well-known blogger Kevin Anderson and social media consultancy FutureGov to focus discussion on political issues rather than personalities.
Through a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter hashtag, the TalkIssues campaign provides information on the different parties’ policy announcements, and a space for discussion and debate.
Discussions on blog and Facebook are linked through a simple Facebook app, and Twitter updates also appear on the blog site.
The first televised debate between the party leaders is tonight (Thursday), and TalkIssues will be covering it live on Twitter and on the blog. Closer to election night (6 May), we will also be trying to arrange election meetups in various locations around the UK.
Any PEP-NET members who are interested in keeping in touch would be welcome to sign up for the Facebook page or follow the hashtag. Anthony at the Democratic Society is the person to speak to if you would like to discuss what’s happening.
Posted in Projects, Twitter, members | 1 Comment »
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8. April 2010 – 10:52 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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Photo by Melvinheng on Flickr
You’d think that a general election would be quite an exciting time in eParticipation. Indeed, that was one of my first ideas for a PEP-NET blog post. I’d make use of PEP-NET’s UK contacts to find some meaty examples of how people are participating in new and exciting ways and then blog about it.
Well that’s not quite how it worked out. I spoke to Peter Cruickshank, from the International Teledemocracy Centre at Edinburgh Napier University, who burst my bubble straight away:
“Many people think an election isn’t the best time to work on eParticipation, which often focuses on lobbying representatives between elections. In fact, the election can be something of a distraction.”
Okay. Well what about Andy Williamson from the Hansard Society?
“We won’t see anything like the Obama campaign in the UK because our system isn’t personality-centred like a presidential campaign. You need big personalities to build campaigns around, and our electoral system doesn’t work like that.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
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1. April 2010 – 10:30 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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By kotofoto1 on Flickr
Every morning, on my way to the underground station, I walk down a nice tree-lined lane. I think the trees feel a little taken-for-granted, though: almost all of them have some kind of banner crying out to the world how valuable they are. Slogans like “night-time owl sanctuary”, and “I filter the air!”
As a quick internet search reveals, this is all part of a protest against the local government’s plan to fell the trees. You can see a video of “Tree Night” (Nacht der Bäume), which took place on 30th September last year, on YouTube.
It seems that trees are an issue that not only Hamburgers care about: I noticed a recent article about trees that have been removed and not replaced on the Bournville Village community website. The article also contains a YouTube video, this time of a resident explaining the situation.
Both cases are examples of concerned citizens using social media, on their own initiative, to highlight local issues that are important to them and campaign for change. If you have any more such examples of “hyperlocal” media, let us have them!
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“Nacht der Bäume” has a website all of its own (in German), as does the “Bürgerinitiative” (citizens’ action group) for Emil-Andresen-Straße. All in German, of course — that’s hyper-local for you!
For information on what “hyperlocal” means, including links to many example sites, take a look at the UK-based talk about local website.
You may also be interested in this comment piece by Jeff Jarvis in the Guardian.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
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3. March 2010 – 13:38 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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My name is John Heaven and I started work at TuTech Innovation on 1st March 2010. I will be working on - amongst other things - PEP-NET. Part of my role will be to work together with Bengt Feil on establishing what members would like to get out of PEP-NET membership, how we can improve what we offer to them, and ultimately ensure that PEP-NET can support itself into the future.
But before I set about that, I thought maybe you’d like to hear about where I’m from and what I’ve been doing until now, especially around eParticipation!
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Posted in Uncategorized, good practice | 7 Comments »
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1. July 2009 – 09:04 by International Teledemocracy Centre
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Online petitioning is one of the oldest forms of e-participation around - in Scotland’s case it has been part of the political system for 10 years now. Partly to mark the 10 years of operation, the Scottish Parliament on 16 June 2009 published the report of a year-long inquiry by the Public Petitions Committee into the public petitions process, including its e-Petitioner system. This inquiry looked at how to improve awareness of the existence of the public petitions process, particularly amongst hard to reach groups; participation in the process itself; and the scrutiny role fulfilled by the Committee. For practitioners, it gives an insight into how a maturing e-participation technology is incorporated into the political process.
There are a number of interesting observations and recommendations: one highlight for me is the emphasis on physically holding meetings around the country, involving community workers, and also using former petitioners as ambassadors for the process.
e-Petitions are treated as just another route to get your voice heard:
“86. …it must be recognised that technology is only an enabler of participation and therefore it is not axiomatic that increased engagement will occur as a consequence of new technology. ICTs should be used as a means of enhancing traditional methods of engagement.”
(ITC was involved in the development of the e-Petitioner system in 1999, and I am now involved in the EuroPetition project that carries many of the ideas forward).
The petitions committee has identified the need for a “coherent strategy” for the introduction of video, blogging and other Web2.0 technologies by the Scottish Parliament’s petitions committee, and set up a new blogspot blog and produced a new petitions DVD. I believe this shows a real willingness to learn by the politicians.
Finally, I’d recommend taking 8 minutes to watch the excellent video (Windows Media format) on this blog entry. It explains how the petitioning process works from petitioners’ and politicians’ viewpoints and has some nice stories about how this form of petitioning increases engagement with politics.
- Peter Cruickshank
Posted in Tools, good practice | No Comments »
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7. January 2009 – 11:01 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)
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The Home Office in Great Britain adapted a plan which allows “police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant” according to the Times Online. This kind of remote search allows both police and MI5 officers to examine suspects’ hard drives, to install keylogging software or infect the targeted computer with other kinds of malware (viruses, rootkits etc.). This can be done to a suspect’s computer at home, in the office or in a hotel room. The plan for remote search in GB is based on a decision of the Council of ministers of the European Union from late 2008 which suggests adapting “operational measures, such as cyber patrols, joint investigation teams and remote searches to become part of the fight against cybercrime in the next five years”. I already discussed this decision and its possible negative implementations for privacy and internet freedom in an earlier article.
As the plan in GB is an adaptation of the Council of ministers decision it can be seen as a blueprint for similar laws in other EU states. Therefore it makes sense to take a look at what it allows officers to do:
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Posted in Trends | No Comments »
